Ichiban Kenpachi: Unohana Yachiru
by UnohanaYachiru
Summary: Unohana Yachiru was not a woman you wanted as your enemy. Unfortunately for Yamamoto, she is his, and he's going to find out just what that means for not just him, but Soul Society as a whole. For Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned... AU (see AN inside)
1. Where It Went Wrong

**AN: This is not Captain Mom. This is pre-Gotei 13 Yachiru, pre-Zaraki, while she was still a 'villain'. You don't want to mess with her. The prompt for this fanfic was the question: "What If Yachiru never became Retsu?"**

Yachiru lowered her blade as her last fight ended. It was disappointing, the latest Quincy man had charged her with nothing but fear in his weapon, and as such he'd been almost boring – there had never been any threat to her. She looked around for another fighter, a stronger fighter, one who could give her a fight worth swinging her blade it, but found them all retreating. Why were they retreating…? They were enemies; they were to be eliminated.

"Yamamoto! They're getting away!"

Yachiru called to the much older man, but he waved her off. She prepared to leap into flash step, but Yamamoto's harsh voice stopped her.

"Let them go."

She leapt anyway, just to find him at the end of her first step. He was angry at her, and the fire shone in his eyes. As he stopped her, the enemies finished fleeing; escaping into some far-off region they'd never be found in. The thought pissed Yachiru off.

"Old man, you let them get away!"

"They were retreating. To kill them as their backs were turned would have been wrong."

"It doesn't matter which way their backs are facing. We came here to kill them!"

That their battle philosophies were very different was plain. She was in favor of completely destroying an enemy. He had rules of battle that were very clear cut to him, and to defy those rules were worse than being on the opposing side.

"They'll be back; you haven't seen the last of them."

She was right, and the older man knew it. "Then we'll deal with it. You nearly crossed a line."

"A line you made. There are no rules in war, old man."

Yamamoto held his stare, his flaming sword still at his side. "If you fight on my side, you fight with my rules."

There was a derisive scoff. Yachiru pulled at the heavily bloodstained haori she was wearing – a haori that had been sparkling clean when he'd presented it to her. "I never agreed to any of that shit. I agreed to fight. If this rag meant I was bound by fighting rules, you can kiss my ass."

"Language. Your speech isn't becoming of a young woman."

That only enraged her more. "No, but it's the way my teacher sounded, and the way I speak, and the way your little running dogs speak, too. Honor gets you killed. If you're gonna fight, don't try to pretend there's a good way to kill someone and a bad way – as long as someone's dangling off the end of your sword by the end, you did it right."

Her expression was set, and her eyes flashed just as well as his did. He flexed his sword arm, weapon pointing perilously close to her, and she smiled a bloodthirsty grin.

"Try it. Old man, you can't kill me. Your losses are heavy, and what few idiots that still flock to your side for 'bravery' and 'honor' are need to clean up this mess. As soon as you raise your blade, I'll raise mine, and even if I die, I'll take everyone else out with me. By your power or mine, if we fight today, you fought your war in vain."

She ripped the haori off her shoulders. This was just another idiot; another man who saw tits and assumed she was inferior in some way – this man, because she didn't conform to his ideas about battle or her own speech. Fuck it. She'd carved the bloody path on her own, and she'd go back to that existence. The last few months of companionship with others her own strength had almost softened her, and she'd learned much, but at the end of the day she was a freak among freaks. She didn't need these or anyone else to guide her path any longer. She and her sword made their own way. Her long black hair clung to her shoulders, sopping wet and beginning to clump with the blood and viscera of the lives she'd taken, and she walked a few steps before flashing away. In that time, though, she had one last message for the judgmental fool who'd tried to rein her in.

"This won't be the last time you see me – but when you do, I'll be on the other side of the battlefield. It'll be on your own head."


	2. The Drift Gets Wider

Genryuusai watched her go. Offending her meant nothing to him, he was stronger than she was and if they fought, he'd win – however barely. It simply showed to the fact that women were not to be in combat. They were fickle. They were unpredictable. This woman would not have been one he'd want to command troops, not even in peacetime. As he held his ground, he could feel the weight of the others' eyes on him, questioning whether or not he'd made the right decision. Tough shit. He was the one who led them all for a reason, and if they didn't like what he did, they could follow that brazen child and be done with any chance of redemption from him.

He turned, and then saw Hikifune-san, a woman who was both very helpful and very powerful. Perhaps not all women were as Unohana Yachiru was. Still, Hikifune would be the only woman in his new group, the ones who had replaced the old, ineffective group of 13 – Genryuusai himself would lead this new band of warriors, who numbered only 12. Whereas in the past, there had simply been 13 defenders of the world, 13 of the strongest and bravest, there would now be 12 who would teach their skills and guide others in the way of the sword, the step, the spell, and the strike. There would be a system of monitoring the World of the Living, so as to stop the Hollows **before** they became all-consuming threats. This world could be better and stronger, and Genryuusai knew that they'd only just repelled the Quincy invaders. They had to be stronger and better, for the Quincy would be back. Maybe in a century, perhaps more, but the Quincy had to be eradicated from the universe. It was the only way to protect the balance.

And so he, with the help of the other 11 people, created such a society. There was a special Division set aside for healing, and one for communications and security, and also one for special intelligence, but there were also little defense groups within the Divisions. These were made of people who were crazier, stronger, more bloodthirsty than their peers, and they were the ones sent ahead before each fight. Those men and women were often loyal to only their group, their group leader, and their Captain, drank too much, colored the air with their profanity, had little to no discipline, and didn't show respect to anyone. Still, they were good at defending their comrades in times of trouble, and while the suicide-via-Hollow rate was disturbingly high in those Squads, there were always plenty of people willing to take their places.

A thousand years went by, and no word of the Quincy leader or of Yachiru. There was speculation that she'd joined them, but that was only scuttlebutt. She'd never do that. She was too proud, too powerful. And the little intel they had on her wasn't workable. Sometimes she was in a mountain range. Sometimes she was in a valley. She was always fighting, though – people would travel to find her, and when they did, they usually challenged her to a fight. There was a legend growing about how she was undefeatable, how she'd never suffered a single loss in all her time.

The most powerful, the least ruly, the fighters that might have been amazing if they'd learnt order and joined the Gotei 13 – they all went to seek her. That wasn't to say that the Gotei 12 was made of weaklings, but that Genryuusai was keenly aware that the disrespectful woman continued to take from him even when she'd been gone for ages. And as he continued to head the order that separated the Soul Society from eternal chaos, he never forgave her. No matter how talented she had been with a sword, he was stronger, faster, and even as he grew older, he knew he had the ultimate Bankai in Seireitei. It was _his_ power that was feared, it was within _him_ that the monster was kept, waiting for the next time the Quincy would charge.

AN: Please read and review! Thank you for staying with this story to Chapter 2!


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